215 Responses

It hardly seems "ambitious" to increase jobs only by shifting the risk onto workers, when the recent analysis says it's the managers who need to lift their game to improve productivity.

Danyl's satire - a recommended read - seems more bang on than trad media coverage is likely to be. Perhaps this is finally enough to open some eyes about the gap between the faith-based rhetoric about growth and aspiration and its abject lack from the grey yesterday's men of this cabinet and their compliant new chums.

Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson has said the move will empower business owners to deal with gypsy magic such as possession, shapeshifting and decreasing shareholder dividends in a reasonable and forthright manner.

‘We have no statistical data on the impact of gypsies on economic growth but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming,’ Wilkinson said. ‘Yesterday I met with representatives of a major New Zealand exporting company. Like most responsible businesses they responded to the global financial crisis by dismissing their workers and increasing executive compensation but far from increasing profits this company suffered a serious decline in productivity and earnings.’

‘The problem was traced back to a gypsy potion in the water supply but without a proper legal framework in place to deal with gypsy related mischief employers are powerless.’

Sam also posted this gem from Danyl on t'other thread, explaining why the policy won't actually work except as a sop to supporters:

Sure, this law might make employers more likely to take risks when hiring – but employers already have the option of hiring new employees on three month contracts before making them permanent. So the benefits are likely to be negligible – medium and large companies can now avoid this minor bureaucratic overhead – with the drawback being decreased labour market mobility.

So how do those costs and benefits balance out? New Zealand is already one of the easiest countries in the world for companies to do business – that just got slightly easier. Great. Decreasing labour mobility will reduce productivity and wage growth. National based it’s entire election campaign on improving these two metrics and this policy is another indication that they have absolutely no idea of how to do that – so why not toss some red meat to their members and donors at their conference this weekend instead?

"I don't regard employers as the enemy. That would be ridiculous. The enterprise and willingness to embrace risk of employers literally pays the rent of millions of people."

I can't say I'm fussed on the first sentence, but the second sentence is patently ridiculous. It's the hard work of thousands of employees that pays their rents, not the largess of employers. If the employers couldn't extract surplus value from workers' time and effort they wouldn't bother employing them.

Will most new employees? Perhaps. Will many more semi- or un-skilled workers? Probably. But it will not apply to everyone? Clearly and obviously not.

Some employees will be in a strong enough position to bargain away the 90-day period as a condition of employment -- those who would be least likely to be unfavourably affected by it in the first place.

But it will be an issue for everyone entering a new job, and probably, as you say yourself, a fait accompli for most workers, especially the unskilled. I think that making the eligibility for the period universal will tend to make its application nearly so.

I think you'll find that it's the work that employees do for those employers that *literally* pays their rent.

It's the money they're paid from the turnover of the business that *literally* does that, if we're going to be fiddly about it. I was simply saying that I don't find it useful to see people who create businesses and employ other people as the enemy.

Nine to Noon has a good interview with EEO Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor on the matter. McGregor says, and I agree, the big problem is the summary nature of dismissal.

Yes, that was a good interview. The loss of rights and redress is shocking.

It needs someone with more time and resources available than I have, but after a quick look it's evidence to me that many other jurisdictions operating "employment on probation" schemes also offer appeals and grievance processes.

For example, here are the relevant Australian rules, which explicitly provide for a grievance process for someone fired in a probationary period.

I wonder if companies choosing not to use this law, i.e. not taking-up a 90 right to fire at will, will become a point of difference once the employment rate picks-up?

I think, if I had the opportunity, I'd shop around employers to see who did and did not have this on offer. And I might, if I were an employer in a tight market, parade my non-use as a reason to work for me.

Though a large pool of unemployed people does seem to go hand-in-hand with the current government's (and those like them) philosophy on how to run a country, so this might be a moot point.